Though Words Come Hindmost
by Handful of Silence
Summary: There were some things they couldn't talk to anyone about, but they needed to have an outlet somewhere, which was why they wrote each other letters they knew the other would never read. Holmes/Watson *Alternative ending added*
1. Chapter 1

**Author Note: A lot of firsts for me in this story. This would be my first proper Sherlock Holmes multi-chap story- although I haven't really been writing for this fandom long so I have an excuse, and it is the first one in first person format. So if it goes atrociously wrong, please tell me. **

**Pairings: Holmes/Watson**

**Warnings: Dark, mentions of drug abuse, slash**

**Though Words Come Hindmost**

"_But that is in my thoughts, whose love to you_

_(Though words come hindmost) holds his rank before_

_Then others for the breath of words respect,_

_Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect"_

_*_

"_My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still, _

_While comments of your phrase, richly compil'd,_

_Reserve their character with golden quill"_

**Sonnet 85, William Shakespeare**

*

Dear John,

I don't even know why I'm writing this letter to you. It seems like a foolish endeavour, as I know you may never read what is written upon these pages, the quixotic and inane ramblings of a man who has little left to lose but his only friend, but it is one borne of hope that one day you'll understand why I'm doing this. I should just stop now, but like my many vices I have not the strength of will to hold me back. It always seemed to be you who helped me stop, who held me back with strong arms and a desperate loyalty I have never been able to understand.

I'm not one for subtleties Watson, never have been. You should know; you seem to understand me better then anyone else alive. Even my own flesh and blood in the form of Mycroft- solid, sensible Mycroft- has less in common with me then you do. I don't know why or quite understand, something that frustrates me greatly, but you and me are both on the same page, our thoughts, although not completely the same, at least meet upon the same wavelength. I often wonder why you put up with me; my moods, my vices, and my petulant behaviour, but I'm afraid I must disappoint you again.

As I can look at the clock- it is yours really, but for some reason I find it still sitting upon my mantle despite the fact you have moved out, I can see that you will be married in no less than four minutes and thirty seven seconds. I kept my eyes on the clock as though it is my lifeline, and although my spirits sink lower the closer the clock counts down to zero, I find I cannot turn away. In barely any time at all, you will belong to someone else, somebody other than me. I always considered you mine Watson, perhaps too possessively, an attachment that I now reap the benefits of, as I am left without your presence. It hurts and I feel less in control. The high I find myself experiencing with my drugs is a parody to the rush I feel when I am around you, and over the years I have become dependant on it. Now you are no longer here I am forced to experience the withdrawal, shown in the days locked in my rooms away from the light, my mind listless and unable to grasp onto any stimuli. I'm quite sure that soon I will drive Mrs Hudson quite demented with my tuneless violin plucking, no solid rhythm, just a constant sound that drowns out my hurt for a few short hours until cruel reality catches up with me. You just always seemed to be there for me and I tried to do the same for you over the years. I like to think we've become close since we first met, as close as brothers, and I would do almost anything to see you happy. Except one thing, which is why I can't accept your invitation. It sits in front of me as I write, mocking, embossed paper with words that seem to burn like fire every time I look upon them.

_John Watson and Mary Morstan_

_Formally invite you to their wedding ceremony…_

There is more but I cannot look upon it. I know you want me there John, and I am truly sorry. In any other circumstances I would be standing at your side, proud to be your best man, proud to be considered in a place of such high honour, but such things can never come to pass. I can't stand by you, not today; it would hurt too much. To know you are being married off to another is torture enough, but to stand there and watch it happen, unable to say anything…it would be unbearable. The action would hurt us both, and having been given the choice however distasteful, I would rather you suffered from my absence than from the hurt caused from the bitter words I would undoubtedly voice. I can't hold my tongue Watson, you know that. Even if it is for your sake. You deserve better old boy, and the only sadness borne of this sorry predicament is that I cannot provide you with such. This is the life you want and I find myself unable to deny you that, however much it pains me. You were always more sentimental than me Watson. If either of us were to ever rise above the constant status of bachelor, I would have waged my bets upon you every time. And you deserve it; deserve every moment of happiness you can catch hold of. Even if it does not correspond with my own.

I know I am not the easiest person to get on with, and over time I've realised that you are my only friend, and the best kind I could ever have asked for. Of course, I have acquaintances and colleagues and family, but it has only ever been you, Watson, who has kept by me through it all. Despite my vices, despite my childishness, despite my recklessness that has nearly gotten you killed on more than one occasion. Yours is a friendship I do not ever wish to lose, the wishes of a lonely and selfish man, and I hope we will remain close despite your marriage. Cavendish place is not far, I believe. You could come and visit me, wife permitting, and if you ever wanted me over for dinner or just wanted to see me… I would be more than happy to oblige.

Because of my belief and trust in our friendship, I will leave you to take the path you have chosen, wherever it may lead you, or leave me. I can only hope in my heart that I do not lose sight of you in the process.

Faithfully,

Your Sherlock.

***

Dear Sherlock,

This letter you will never read, tucked away at the back of my notebook, hidden from prying eyes, but I am writing it regardless. You would call me illogical and overly sentimental, I know, but I feel- I hope- that at some level you could understand what I'm trying to put into words. My thoughts are jumbled and I can't follow them, so distracted am I, but writing this down my help me untangle the wound-up strings in my mind. Strange that I am about to be married, but the only person I find myself thinking of is you.

I have resigned myself to the fact that you aren't coming, despite you knowing what it would mean to me. I fully understand you do not approve of my marriage and consider it a slight upon our long friendship, but I cannot help but feel saddened that for one day you could not stow away your stubbornness and stand at my side. I need you to talk to, Holmes. In truth, I am unsure of what I am doing here, dressed in an uncomfortable suit and self-conscious about the cane in my hand, and you are the only one I could talk to about it. It is five minutes (four minutes and thirty- seven seconds, I know how you like your accuracy) till I am to be at the altar, marrying the woman that supposedly I love. Perhaps it is just pre-wedding nerves but I can't help feeling that something more fundamental is wrong with what I'm doing. I do not know but you see to be at the heart of it, the master puppeteer holding all the strings. It was with a heavy heart I moved out of Baker Street, away from you, and it is with an even heavier weight that I commit my thoughts to paper as though the mere act of me writing them down makes them more real.

I miss you Holmes, more than I should. It is true we have not really parted, but it feels as such. It is strange not waking up to the sound of Gladstone barking or the noise your damned experiments make when they go wrong. Soon I will be waking up next to another body, and even stranger experience still.

I fear that my marriage will part us, my friend, and that is the last thing I want to come of this. You have corrupted me too much with your presence and it seems now like you are the only constant I possess. Without you, I am lost. I have nowhere to turn and I am so scared of being alone.

Three minutes and I suppose I better go. Get it over and done with. I am Mary's as of three minutes, and unless you come bursting in at the 'speak now or forever hold your peace' moment- which I wouldn't put past you, I know you too well, I will be married off. My hands are shaking and if I ever needed you, it would be now.

For what I am about to do, I am so sorry. Please forgive me.

Your John


	2. Chapter 2

**Author Note: I was going to post this chapter today and Chapter three tomorrow, but due to the fact I'm working tomorrow, and because of the nice reviews I've been getting from all you amazing readers, I'll post them both now. They aren't really long anyway, but you'll have to wait a few days (or just one if I get the damn thing written tonight without interruption) for Chapter 4 to be posted.**

**A lot of you commented on how this story is quite sad. I warn you now; it doesn't get much more cheerful. Sorry. I feel kinda depressed writing it, but this is all in the name of Holmes and fiction writing so I'm sure I'll get over it. :-)**

**Warnings: Dark, Slash.**

"_A countenance more_

_In sorrow than in anger"_

**Hamlet, Act I, Scene II**

"_For more is to be said, and to be done_

_Than out of anger can be uttered"_

**Henry IV, Part I, Act I, Scene I**

*****

John,

You have been gone from this house for barely half an hour but it feels like ages have gone by since we spoke, since I saw your face twisted in anger and frustration, signs of a tortured soul. There are so many things I should have said to you, instead of instinctively lashing out at you like some guilt ridden child who has been caught doing wrong. I know my faults old boy, and on occasion I have even been known to admit to them, however few those occasions may be. I need to speak to you, apologize for my behaviour and seek forgiveness from your lips, but I fear if we spoke my throat would choke up with an anger that seems to come from nowhere, clouding my judgement and blinding me from the obvious. Making me say things I don't mean, say things I shouldn't. I feel that, in writing my thoughts down, in some small way I have come part way to absolving my sins, but the final choice rests in your hands. I realize I am always the first to deny blame for some wrongdoing, but even now I can see I have played a significant part in your misery and this knowledge weighs heavily on my thoughts.

I know you felt I never liked Mary, Watson, but in some ways this is a misconception. Mary was a strong woman. She was brave and honest and she knew her mind and spoke it, a trait I value highly. In these respects you were well suited, for these are characteristics you share. Her marriage to you also made perfect sense; it offered security, comfort and the domesticity all men of your age should have been settling down to. All the things I could never give you. I was jealous of her old boy. Jealous that you were hers, jealous that she was slowly taking you away from me, jealous that she made your eyes light up in a way that they never did around me.

In my pettiness I reacted, and I fear this confrontation with you marks the beginning of the end of our friendship, although I hope this is untrue. She left you minutes before you were to be married. To have love torn away from you like that I imagine would be such a painful and solitary experience, one that you could not share with anyone. It is for this reason and the fact that you are a dear friend- my only friend- that I do not blame you for anything that happened between us. Not for drinking your sorrows still in your wedding suit, not for returning to Baker Street full of angry words and blame. You accused me of being the reason Mary left you and I should have stayed quiet, should have let you blame me, for there was a truth in your words that I recognised and felt ashamed over. As though I was the one who had shamed you, as though I was the sole origin of your hurt. But as usual my anger got the better of me, as it so often does. I should never have said you didn't love her, should never have said that I always knew it was doomed to fail. Those things I said were cruel and vindictive, borne of a jealous temper and a vicious anger. It was unfair of me and untrue. You loved her in a way you would never be able to love me and I envied her so much for that. I wanted that sort of love from you, wanted to make you smile like that, wanted to see the expression you gave her, like she was the only thing in the world that mattered, directed at me, but these are things I can never have and I've come to accept that.

For what it's worth, I am sorry. From the bottom of whatever heart I have left

Sherlock

**

Sherlock,

I shouldn't have screamed at you. I am sitting at the moment of writing at a corner table in some public house, pouring out my feelings onto some miserable scrap of paper torn from my notebook, that can go no way to relaying to you what I am feeling underneath. Words have little place to describe emotion, will always come as second when compared to the primary source, but I have little choice. My fingers are stained with ink and it's cold this end of town, my fingers seizing at intervals, but my mind pays little heed. There are more important things in my thoughts at this present moment. Mainly you. I have nowhere else to go, which is why I'm writing this is some godforsaken end of town, where thieves sell their goods and drunkards spend money that should be going to help their wives raise innumerable children. Yet I cannot go back to Cavendish place. Mary will have started moving her stuff out by now. I suspect she'll move back in with her sister for a while, until she can secure herself new lodgings. The house will be mine now, but I don't want it. It never felt like my house Holmes, never. It was her house, the house I just happened to share with her. I can't show my face there, not after what she said, not after I know why she left, and I dare not return to Baker Street, considering the words I spoke to you not an hour ago. It was wrong and unfair of me, and I reacted according to what I felt, guilty, and I sought to pin the blame upon so it wouldn't lie on my shoulders. I hurt you deeply Sherlock, and I cannot ask you to forgive me.

I had nearly everything for a while. A fiancée who loved me, a practice of my own. My life made perfect sense and I would have been content to live it if not for one small problem. There was always one element that didn't fit the pattern, one puzzle that refused to combine in my image of blissful domesticity. I showered Mary with all I could afford, took her to plays, danced with her, brought her dresses and small gifts and kept my promises as well as I could. But I couldn't give her my heart, my whole heart and in the end that was all she wanted. She told me, calmly and refined as ever, that she couldn't marry a man who did not love her completely. When I protested to tell her that I loved her, she said she knew that, but that she also knew that there was another person who I loved equally as much and perhaps more, and that it was unfair on either of us to pretend otherwise. She wasn't angry, just sad, and maybe that hurt me more. And then she walked out and I was left just standing there, a kaleidoscope of feelings thrumming though my mind that my brain could not process. I could not give her my heart, for it was no longer in my keeping, and I think she knew that. I shouted at you, not because I was angry, not truly, but because I was afraid, I was scared. Mary offered me the sort of life some part of me yearned for, but one, which I could never accept, would never have. I couldn't settle down like I was expected to, couldn't stop chasing you with your cases and insights no matter how much society told me otherwise.

The honest truth is, I couldn't leave you, couldn't forget you, no matter how much I wanted to. Many a time I have cursed your name and wished you no part of my life, but my words are hollow and I know that my life would be just that, hollow, if you were not a player in it. I should not possess feelings like this, fancies of the heart that beat and flutter in their imprisonment like caged canaries. I shouldn't have put so much into our friendship, shouldn't have allowed myself in deeper and deeper into your world of maddening logic and reasoned vice. Now I'm afraid again, afraid I've lost you for good. I didn't know how caught I was in this trap until it was too late, and now I am unable to free myself from it.

The thing is Holmes; my heart no longer belongs to me. It belongs to you. And I'm afraid of what you'll choose to do with it.

John


	3. Chapter 3

**And now for Chapter three…**

"_Our men, with open mouths and staring eyes,_

_Look on each other, as they did attend_

_Each other's words, and yet no creature speaks;_

_A tongue-tied fear hath made a midnight hour,_

_And speeches sleep through all the waking regions"_

**Edward III, Act IV, Scene V**

"_Yet this my comfort, when your words are done,_

_My woes end likewise with the evening sun"_

**Comedy of Errors, Act I, Scene I**

*****

Dear John,

It has been many weeks since we last spoke, and yet it feels longer, eons and eons having passed by without me noticing, the days dragging on, merging into one like a painting whose paint has run in the teardrops of rain. I have taken no cases, and done very little but stay in my rooms, avoiding civilisation. Mrs Hudson has given up trying to coax me downstairs, and three times a day there is a small knock, and I can hear the clatter of a tray as it is placed outside my door. An hour later it is taken away again, and I can hear her sigh again as she takes the uneaten food away. On some days, admittedly I have eaten, but it feels like a weakness, a dependability I should be able to live without. Like you. But like the food, and the seven percent solution, I see to need you Watson. More then I care to think about.

If you were here, you'd pull open the curtains and open the sash windows to let the fresh air in, cool and unnatural upon my face, your strong arms propping me up and forcing me in a stern voice but with gentle eyes to eat a decent meal. But as you aren't, I do none of those things. It scares me that I've come to rely on you, mother hen. _My_ mother hen, worrying about me, a guiding hand in the darkness when sense has slipped from my eyes like lenses. My Boswell, my conscience, always at my shoulder with a steadying hand and concerned words. I know I should have treated you better, but it seems I only realise my mistakes when I am faced with the loss of something. I awoke you at ungodly hours with my butchering of Vivaldi; I stole your clothes on a biased barter system, tested on Gladstone- who was yours really, though I loathe to admit it. I worried you sick when I went out for long hours without a word, sometimes even days, returning bleeding or hurt with no word of how I got in my state and irritable shrugs to your questioning. You put up with my lack of manners, my poor hygiene and general rudeness, and patched me up from every injury, made me better. You were the only one I ever let in, and I am suffering deeply ,to the very core of my being, now that you are gone.

I know you are safe, staying at your late brothers place, until you find other lodgings I suppose. I long that you return to Baker Street but you do not seem to be talking to me. My letters are not answered, my telegrams ignored and when I tried to visit, you opened the door , a look of great sadness crossing your face as you saw me, before you closed the door again. You looked so pale Watson, gaunt and tired, stubble growing on your usually smooth cheeks. My logical mind deduces that you have not been sleeping or eating adequately, that something is upon your mind. What preys there and causes you such distress I have yet to discover. If you are angry, I do not blame you for I have done many things over the years that you have reason to feel angry over, but I truly miss you. I miss your friendship, your advice, you swearing at me when I awoke you in the night, the blue of your eyes when they turned to fix upon mine. I need you to understand that I would never do anything, willingly or knowingly, to hurt you, would do anything to have our friendship back the way it was.

Talk to me John. Please.

Your Sherlock.

***

Dear Sherlock,

It is the silence I notice the most you know. When I was lodging at Baker Street, there was always an ever present cacophony of sound; Mrs Hudson bustling in the kitchen, your footsteps on the wooden floor as you paced, deep in thought, or the sound of you tinkering with your experiments. I need time to think Sherlock, and I can never think clearly when you are around. My mind focuses on you and only you, and nothing seems to matter outside the two of us. I'm distracted by thoughts I'm unable to describe, thoughts I can't explain, but I know I need to think over them. For that I need quiet.

I know my forced silence is hurting you, and it hurts me too, to realise how much it is upsetting you. The feeling is not one I like to dwell over. It's a curious sort of numb pain, a constant bass-line beat like that of a broken limb, but I'm not broken. A knife has been twisted into my heart, snapping it close to breaking, yet there is no wound, nothing to explain the pain. The pain flared to a painful climax when you turned up at my door. Your eyes were exhausted as though you had not slept and your whole posture tense like a watch that had been wound up too tight. There are other observations too; ones that I can't see but know are there; like fresh track marks up your arms, cataloguing your misery. And I have caused this. Me, a doctor who swears to do no harm but leaves a blazing trail of broken hearts in his wake.

I could not speak to you, didn't dare, for I feared what my uncontrolled mouth might speak. There are things I need to consider for I do not even understand them myself. Emotion is a powerful thing, but it is also a dangerous one in our society of strict barriers, and the only thing I truly understand are the consequences of the thoughts I hold in my mind. Like a coward, I hide away from the thing I need most, yet I crave your company, your closeness and companionship a vice to me like the ones you inject in your arms.

Allow me time to think Sherlock, for the very state of my soul is reliant upon your decision. My exclusion from your presence is not permanent, and I feel soulless and empty without you nearby, my body a thing for the world to do with what it wishes, but I need to do this Holmes, and for that I apologize.

It is a necessary evil.

Your John


	4. Chapter 4

_**Author Note: OK, I'm sorry it's been so long since an update. School, life, etc, got in the way. Anyway, thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far; they really mean a lot to me.**_

"_In sooth I know not why I am so sad;_

_It wearies me, you say it wearies you;_

_But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,_

_What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born, __I am to learn" _

**Merchant of Venice, Act I, Scene I***

My dearest Holmes,

I will never be able to be by your side as I so often was when you read this letter. I can picture you in my mind's eye, in a vision as crisp and pristine as fallen snow, your eyes crinkling at the corners, face unreadable and for all intents and purposes engaged solely in the task of reading what has been put to you. As I can't be there, I will never be able to gauge your reaction at what is written upon these pages in my own hand, and on the other pages that have come before that I have dictated to be delivered to you. Maybe it is better this way. Rest assured these letters will arrive to you in safe hands by way of my solicitor, a man by the name of Mr. Jackson Ely, who is to take charge of the affairs left to him at such a time when I am no longer to manage them.

The thing is old boy, I'm dieing. Consumption is a dreadful thing, and although it is not the most dignified way of ending my life, end it eventually shall. I think I managed to hide my illness from you, all things considering. The knowledge that I succeeded to secrete my condition, even if only partly, from the great Sherlock Holmes is not something that lies lightly upon my heart. I know that the last few months I have seemed distant, staying locked in my rooms or out of the house altogether. I have come to know the streets of London quite well through this constant ritual of going out of Baker Street when weather permitted.

My excuse for these actions to you was that I was often out at the clinic, the practice having become busier what with the fever being more virulent after the bad weather we had endured recently. This lie at least has some element of truth, but most of it is a hasty fabrication of my own thoughts. 'Truth is, I gave up my position at the practice months ago for fear of passing my illness on to my patients, but with you it was far more difficult to distance myself. My fear grew daily that you would somehow catch my disease, infect you so that you would be forced to endure the same suffering. I should think I would rather die a hundred painful deaths rather than have to watch you wrestle with illness as I have. For a while I thought I could hide it from you. I learned to keep seldom in your company and to cough quietly however difficult- until it felt my lungs no longer held the oxygen necessary- so as not to arouse your suspicion. I coped in silence when fever raged upon my brow and in my soul, burning me from the inside, or when chills gripped me and I had to illicit more blankets into my room, sneaking around like a common criminal who has no desire to be discovered in his activities. It was worth you not knowing Holmes, for I could not stand to be a cause of such misery to you. The knowledge of my death is a heavy burden upon my tired shoulders but to allow it to hoist itself like some unnecessary tumour upon others is something I did not want.

I'm surprised I got away with my secrecy for so long, given your sharp eye and quickness of deduction, but as my symptoms worsened it became harder to hide. I managed to hide my thinning stature, and excuse my pallor as overwork, but when you began to notice changes; how I tired easily, the times when I winced due to the pain in my chest, I knew that it wouldn't be long and withdrew deeper into my shell, hoping to spare you some of the eventual pain of my death. Even as I write I know that my end is not long in coming, yet I do not fear it. I've been around death too much in my lifetime, seen smiling old men close their eyes as though in sleep and never awaken again, seen men with so much life suddenly die in stupid preventable accidents. War brings you closer to death and I have long been comfortable with my own morality. There was many times in Afghanistan when I believed my time had come, and I've come to understand how lucky I am to have survived to live another sort of life in your company. I didn't expect my death to be so soon and rather romantically hoped for a quick death while doing my duty at your side, aiding in the capture of a nefarious criminal at the cost of my own life. Silly I know, but rather better then this wasting burden, which creeps in every closer like ephemeral fog, teasing and prolonged.

I shouldn't complain really. I've lived a fruitful life and perhaps have experienced more wonders of this ever-expanding empire then some people ever accomplish in their entire lifetimes. I've seen so many sights in your company, so many strange stories that I have been able to be a part of. One of my greatest achievements in this life has been to know you, old boy. Few get such a privilege and I have no regrets about my life or our friendship. I am proud to be considered your friend, but there are a few things I wish to bring up that I know I will never have the courage to say to you while I'm still breathing. I hope you'll forgive me this, Holmes. I may have known you a long time, but I am still a man, and men are prone to bursts of cowardice and fear as much as anyone else. I know that you always wondered about some things, and probably would have deduced them if I hadn't steadfastly refused to give you any clues as to my reasoning. But now that I have little time, I feel I should let you know some things. Answers to mysteries. The reasons why I never remarried or why I stayed away for a long while before returning to Baker Street. Just little things but I do not want to go to my grave with many secrets.

I loved you Holmes. I'm not sure whether you ever knew or guessed at such a contemptible vice, but it was a secret of such potency I dared not reveal it to anyone. I could barely live with not knowing whether or not you reciprocated my feelings but your rejection would have been far harder to cope with. If you never felt the same, it is of no consequence. I have no kin or kith who are to be shamed by this letter, my sister having moved to America as you are well aware. I have no hold over you, emotional or otherwise and I only ask that, as a final act of friendship, if you do not feel likewise please do not read on, for the contents therein were scribed in the vain and foolish hope you somehow felt half the love in your heart that I felt for you. Burn this letter old boy so that I may be able to retain some dignity.

I always hoped you understood Holmes but I was never as good as reading people as you, and you yourself were always the hardest to understand. I don't know how it managed to happen, how my thread on the loom of fate became so heavily entwined with your own but it just was. I cannot point to an exact date when I began to notice for it was a presence that had always been there, secured from my weak will and unseeing eyes. You helped me see again. Before you, I was an empty lifeless husk of a man, returning from the war with a chronic ache in my leg and a portmanteau that held all my belongings. It is one of the most thankful moments in my existence when an old acquaintance by the name of Stamford directed me to your lodgings when I professed my problem of finding suitable longings for myself. It was then I was introduced to you Holmes. You seemed aloof and conceited when we first moved in together, and we barely spoke aside from mealtimes. There was always something that fascinated me about you, and in time we began to socialize more, perhaps realizing we were both as friendless as each other. It was not long after that I began to be drawn into your intriguing work, aiding you in a matter of some urgency. If I remember rightly, we both nearly died that night, but we returned back to Baker Street with grins of triumph and the promise of a late night tipple.

We became closer from then on, but after a while I began to feel things...experience thoughts no God fearing man should. I noticed little things; how your eyes sparkled, a bolt of light through the grey, how you moved your fingers with alarming dexterity over the violin bridge yet played little of substance left to your own devices, except when I requested a piece or when you were seeking my forgiveness for some trivial matter. You were always too proud to admit your fault directly, but some times you apologised in your own little way; playing favoured pieces of mine, quietly changing, even for a while, from what you had been doing to irate me so. The changes weren't much but they always meant something to me. I could deny you nothing Holmes, and my weakness, the knowledge that you had such control over me, scared me. I was frightened, confused, and in my distraction I reached out for a norm to guide me onto the path of society, to act as a prevention for my vice of self-destruction. You may have had your drugs old boy, seven-percent solution to greet you and a boxing ring to vent your anger upon, but I had love, a more efficacious contagion altogether.

My desperate hands one day found Mary. I suppose I loved her in my own little way, but not the way I was meant to. She was kind and compassionate, full of a love of life and a loyal devotion to her fiancée befitting that of a future wife. She was a safe choice. But she wasn't you.

I convinced myself that you would be fine, that you had Irene to douse your affections upon. But you were unhappy at the prospect of me wedding Mary and leaving Baker Street so that I could no longer be tempted of a life I could never allow myself to have, and Irene's shining presence again returned to the ether like an incorporeal wisp of smoke. I'm not sure if you loved her or not. She was a curiosity, a puzzle for you to attempt to understand, but whether or not the puzzle opened up some real affection I'll never know.

I never intended to hurt you Sherlock. I was not so blind to the affects of my absence upon you and your health, and my leaving hurt both of us. The amount of times I was angry with you for sabotaging my relationship was anger for a different reason. I wanted you to see that this was for the best, that if I was removed from your presence you may have had a chance at finding someone new, someone acceptable, and I may have been able to forget about you. Unfortunately, such things are never as easy as that, and it hurt me down to the marrow of my bones to see you distressed so. After Mary had left, I therefore promised myself that I would never leave your side on account of a woman again. The company of womenfolk has never much interested me compared with the extent of regard I have for your conversation. But I needed to consider the path I had chosen, which was why I stayed away. I needed to consider the consequences of what I had chosen, needed to consider it carefully. I knew too well the punishment if I was found out to possess such ungodly feelings, and I knew I could never let you know of my attraction to you, for the same reasons.

In the end I returned, disregarding any concern for my welfare or the punishment for my sins in the pursuit of being by your side. If there is a hell, I am surely destined there, but in my heart I cannot believe in a God who punishes those who do no wrong but love the wrong person. The Church is flawed by the contempts of man, and if such a God exists- I know you have no such belief, Holmes- I find it hard to believe I am to be eternally damned for loving you.

There are times when I wished you to have knowledge of the emotions I harboured, but I am grateful enough to have lived a life by your side in whatever capacity, be it friend or lover. I only want you to know this, so there can be no challenge to my testimony: I loved you Sherlock. If it had been in another time and place we may have had a chance of something, but even in my natural standing I was happy with you by my side. You made me the man that sits writing this letter now; you completed me when no one else could. Such as the seven-percent was your addiction, you truly were mine, and that was never a bad thing.

I am glad to have been called your friend, and in the end that is all I ever wanted.

Live a good life, Sherlock Holmes. For my sake.

With love and my fondest wishes

Your Watson

_---Thoughts??_


	5. Chapter 5

_**Author Note: As a warning straight off, this chapter is quite dark. And isn't very happy. This chapter went through a lot of drafts, and personally I'm still not completely happy, so if you could comment on it in a review or something, that would be really helpful. This is without a doubt the darkest thing I have EVER written, and I feel kinda guilty about putting them through so much hell. I know a lot of people like a happy ending, so after this there will be an alternative ending "extra chapter". Just as compensation for the words to follow :-)**_

_**Anyway, enjoy (if that is at all possible)**_

_**Pairings: Holmes/Watson**_

_**Warnings: Slash, Dark, mentions of drug abuse, suicidal thoughts.**_

_-_

"_Go not about; my love hath in't a bond_

_Whereof the world takes note. Come, Come, disclose_

_The state of your affection, for your passions_

_Have to the full appeach'd"_

**All's Well That Ends Well, Act I, Scene III**

*

My dearest Watson,

I never noticed how it always rains at funerals. It's not as though I've been to many; my parents ceremonies of course and those of some other relations that over the years I've been unable to recall, but the ones I have attended always seems to be accompanied by a dull heavy rain cloud above, blocking out any sun and pouring out its tears to hide those running down the faces of the deceased's family. The service itself is a quiet sombre affair, and the priest is delivering his usual speech in a monotone, like he's done this before so many times, and before his own time is up he'll do it many more times still. The rain patters down violently, wetting the pages of the worn Bible he holds in his hands, and the sky above grumbles and groans like the wrath of God. Everything seems in mourning, but maybe it is just me. The priest commits your body to the ground in front of your small crowd of witnesses; Mary is here, passing me concerned looks I ignore, and even Mrs Hudson has left her kitchen to attend. Clarky and Lestrade are dressed in their finest uniforms, smartened up and standing straight with sadness across their features. Everyone is wearing black and I expect no less. There is no going back now.

I wish you had told me of your illness Watson, but I understand why you didn't. To live with the knowledge of your own death is challenging enough, but with your usual doggedness and inner strength, you kept it from me until your final days. They were the worst days of my life, old boy. I sat by your side at the hospital as you lay dieing. You slept a lot, due to the morphine given to you to combat your constant pain and because you were just tired. I was scared when you slept. I kept thinking you wouldn't wake up, that this was it and I'd lose you. Each moment was agony, a growing terror in my soul for every time I thought I was losing you, but sometimes you just awoke and smiled tiredly at me, moving your hand over to cover mine. It was that small movement that got me through the days, through the times when you coughed so violent that your entire body shook in spasms, the times when I looked too hard and for too long at the ill pallor of your face, the painful thinness of it cutting at me, guiltily reminding of how I hadn't know, of how I hadn't been able to help. I knew something was wrong, admittedly, but it was something I couldn't put my finger on with you out of the house all the time and away from my close inspection.

Then one day, you just seemed to give up. The thought was impossibility to me; Watson, my Watson, giving up? It was an alien idea but it was happening before my eyes and I could do nothing, nothing but watch. I held tightly to your hand, not caring now of my dignity, the thought not rendering in my consciousness of how I had wanted to hold you for so long, and I begged you not to leave me. I have never begged before; never pleaded for it is not in my nature, but I did then, by a dying man in a small hospital room, fear in my eyes and an unheard of tremor in my voice.

"Don't leave me, old boy" my voice said, as though it was a separate entity to myself, and you smiled back and squeezed my hand back tightly, gripping onto it like a lifeline.

"I'm so sorry" you whispered back, your eyes closing, the lids too heavy for you to hold up. There was a curious pain in my chest, like I was being poisoned or shot but worth a thousand of those deaths rolled into one agony in my breast. My heart was breaking Watson, as I watched you dying before me. There was no miracle cure at hand, no sudden answer I could pluck out of my head to fix what was so disastrously wrong. There was just this moment, with you drifting away before my very eyes and my heart irreparably breaking for every moment I had to watch.

"You've got nothing to be sorry for" I assured you without thinking, and I didn't even know if you could hear me anymore, your breathing laboured as inside your lungs struggled to keep pumping air. But you, my dear old Watson, raged against your end until the last, refusing to succumb to the finality of what was to happen if it did not happen by your watch.

"Holmes," you muttered in a quiet voice that didn't seem your own, " Holmes, I..."

I tried to shush you, telling you to conserve your energy because I selfishly wanted to hold onto you longer, but you shook your head weakly and told me to shut my mouth a moment- a sign that told me there was still a spark of the old Watson holding on, the Watson I knew. The Watson I loved.

You wet your lips, seemingly out of nervousness, and continued in a husky voice that trembled and quaked like a man before his God, but with words which continued to be spoken non the less

"There are things I haven't told you, old boy" you said, blue eyes sad and melancholy, filled with depths that went down far into the realm of hidden anguish. I wanted so badly to say something, to interrupt to tell you that whatever it was it was ok, but I held my tongue with difficulty, knowing how much it meant to you for me to stay silent at this moment. "Things, damnable things that would have me burning in the fires of Hell for my sin, things I never acted on" your eyes burned with a sudden pleading intensity, and I had to force myself not to look away when I saw the self loathing in your expression "When you…" you were stopped for a moment by a sudden rattling cough that seemed to shake your thin frame to its core, each sound tearing at my heart a little bit more. I said nothing, for there was nothing I could say, and I felt awkward as I sat watching you, unable to do anything.

It took a few moments for you to stop coughing and recover from the bout, but you struggled on in your attempt to speak regardless.

"When you find out, don't…don't hate me Holmes" I started to interrupt, meaning to tell you that I could never hate you, no matter your crime, but you held a hand up to stop me. In some small way that was a blessing, for with you in your fragile state and me in my fragile mind, I don't think I'd have had the courage to finish my unusual outpouring of emotion for fear of the walls surrounding my heart crashing down and breaking. Now was not the time for tears. I didn't want you to see me cry, partly because I didn't want to upset the limited time we had left together but also because I knew if you tried in your usual way to comfort me, I would worsen and break down. Something that I could not allow to happen.

"I never meant for it to happen," you continued, eyes downcast "but I've managed to keep it from you to the best of my ability so as not to damn both our souls"

I couldn't pretend to know what you were talking about, which I must admit was a first. Without being self-important, I usually know what is happening, and if not can deduce from the facts the inevitable outcome. I took a good look at you, trying not to let my anguish show as my eyes skated over your tallow skin and thin frame. Still I did not see the obvious.

"I could never hate you, John" The words escaped my mouth before I could halt them, my thoughts suddenly voiced, and acting on impulse-for that is my nature- I half raised myself from the uncomfortable bedside chair I had been seated in, leaning over and, uncaring as to the inappropriateness of it and inviting God and society to damn me if I could just have this one moment, pressing my lips softly against yours, ghosting, not forcing anything. It wasn't passionate or filled with any such lust, but it was heartfelt, and comforting declaration that there were things that had been unsaid between us, and that I for one knew that if I had more time with you, I would have acted upon my feelings. This small moment was the one thing that I had always desired above all else without me even realising it until recently, and I knew that I would never get the chance again. It was wrong and sinful and I was expecting you to push me away in disgust for dabbling in the vice of the Greeks, but you did nothing of the sort. I felt your lips push against mine, equally as gently, weak thin arms taking the effort to reach up, carding through my hair just once, before you moved away. There was a small smile on your face as you settled back against the hospital pillows that propped you up.

"Thank you" It was a whisper, but they were words that I would never forget, or want to. You closed your eyes with tiredness, before opening them up again to study me

"Stay with me?"

"I'll stay John" I choked back emotion, and somewhere in my withered heart I knew that once you fell asleep you wouldn't wake up. I couldn't explain it, but it was knowledge as clear as any fact, and just as bold in the recesses of my mind. I saw you move over in the bed slightly and read your intent carefully before acting, sliding in next to you, holding you gently like a fragile china doll. I was not much concerned about doctors catching me, for I would be able to hear their approach and move out of my compromising position, but for the moment I contented my sorrows with the feeling of having you in my arms after so so long. Your skin fought against the coldness of creeping death and retained some warmth that I added mine to, your head resting tiredly against my collarbone as I wrapped my arms around you to keep you close. It was just you and me in that moment, and as you slipped into slumber, I whispered my secret in your ear, not knowing if you heard me. I pressed a kiss to your forehead and held you close like a child, rocking you slightly and humming a tune I remembered my mother singing to me when I was younger. Our small bubble existed out of any reality, and for that moment, I could pretend that we had had this forever.

That night you died in my arms.

The letters delivered to me are hidden away in my pocket, and they provide some small comfort to me. I have read each of them a thousand times by candle light and they have caused a thousand tears to surface before receding as control took over, as I read your words. You loved me. The signs all made sense but I just didn't see them, and now I have to live knowing that I could have had everything I ever wanted if only I had shown a sign of some affection or made the first move. It is too late now.

It feels like a smaller world without you here John. Like suddenly my universe has contracted, everything I cared for strands that have weakened in the overbearing line your presence has woven. I have come to rely on you too much, leaning on your shoulders so that now there is nothing else to prop me up and I am in danger of falling down like a tower of cards with no one to catch me. I never though it possible for one body such as mine to harbour so much pain; held in my fragile glass heart, a pain which hasn't lessened in the days and hours and minutes since you departed the stage of my life having played your part well in my tragedy. Having caused your damage.

I know my words may seem angry to you, but let me reassure you that it is not meant as such. I am angry with myself for filling my life with things that seemed of such importance but now seem barely trivial, feathers on a stronger wind. I didn't see what was right in front of my eyes, didn't seize my one chance at happiness and now I'll never get the chance again. For you are gone, and I am left alone. I know you always said that I never loved, that even the great Irene Adler would not sway me from my meticulous ways, that I could not allow for the capacity to love for it might distract my mind from the purpose it was no doubt destined for, but this was not so. True, I found it hard to love, and I realised years into bachelorhood that maybe I would never love, because it was just not meant to be. But your example of Irene was a misplaced one. I never loved Irene, for it was a fascination that bore only skin deep.

But even around you I could not define what the love was that I had heard so much about. I watched others fall in love, saw the fatal consequences and the lengths people would go for it, but I resigned myself to the fact that it was a state of mind I could never possess. It took me a long time, too long, to realise that love was the feeling in the pit of my stomach when you walked in. The calm that settled over me when I was angry, the rage I felt when you were hurt. I thought it was friendship, misinterpreting the signs Fate was sending in my direction, but no other friendship had I ever felt so strongly in. I would have done anything to have you by my side, and my complete belief that it was only friendship and could only ever be such clouded the obvious. I couldn't define love, but it was everywhere in retrospect. It was the smile I gave you and only you, the times I felt an impulse to reach out for you, the affection I felt in the very depths of my heart that like a blind man, I failed to see.

Somehow my heart, broken and irreparable as it is, is still beating out despite all exterior expectation, a dull repetitive rhyme with no tune in a mockery of living. Mine is a half-life, a monochrome of grey days and black black nights, all colour starkly absent, full of dreams of you, nightmares I wake up from screaming, calling out your name even though I know you won't respond. For some small moments, between sleep and wakefulness I forget that you've gone, forget that you're dead in a panelled oak coffin six feet under the ground, and for those moments everything is ok, you're only in the next room, you're going to walk though my door any second with a smile that reaches your eyes, admonishing words you don't mean for waking you at this time of night… Then reality hits me hard like a vengeful lover, and somehow I manage to feel worse. It's like I've lost you all over again.

I have taken no cases, although they have been offered, Lestrade's enticements of mystery and intrigue no longer drawing me in. It's not the same. We used to take cases together, you by my side to steady my gaze, to ground me when common sense failed me, my Boswell. Now you're gone I cannot imagine taking them without you.

The days merge into one, and I find myself turning to the comfort of my seven percent solution, taking the morocco case down from its place on the mantle, and readying my equipment. Even now, I manage to fastidiously set it all up, but my hands shakes I do so, and I know all too well that it doesn't block out the pain for long. As I roll my sleeves up- I can no longer remember how many days I've been wearing it, but the arms are smudged in dirt and the sleeves in hastily rubbed away tears- my eyes see the pitiful track marks barely closed up running along the underside of my arms, and I hate myself as I depress the plunger like some soulless unthinking automaton, remembering how disappointed you always looked when you saw me doing this to myself, the warnings and worries that fell on stone ears. I don't even have the effort in my to pathetically lie to myself, promise myself that this'll be the last one, I'll stop after this, because I know that as soon as the feelings has gone, it wont be long before I'll come crawling back, a mind full of thoughts of you and a heart in agony at my loss.

The cocaine only serves to make me feel more wretched. I took it once seeking release, but its stimulating effect had me on the floor sobbing, memories I had intentionally tried to dull, bold and bright and blinding my sight. I cried your name wordlessly in a mess of sound, and after I had come down I curled up in the armchair and felt my body trembling violently for a long time afterwards. It was a mistake I was not to repeat again. .

The heroin only dulls the pain, leaving me with a hollowness that lasts barely any time at all before your face begins to resurface in my head like a cancer of the mind, some terminal tumour, and I mouth the syllables of your title as I sink back into my misery. It's never too long before I turn again to reach for my syringe again, needing the silence so I don't have to face up to the horror of it all, the dead bleak prospect of living a life without you. I might end up overdosing one day, but it isn't a thought I shy away from particularly. If I do, I'll get to be with you again. I don't know if there is such thing the heaven you believed in, a place of absolution, the ridding of all venial sins and an eternal life in paradise. I know I mocked you, but now I'm even more inclined to believe in your faith. If anyone ever deserved to go to a heaven Watson, it would be you. If, of course, it doesn't exist, at least all this will stop, all this anguish will end.

Some days I am tempted, so tempted to deliberately take too much. I go through it in my head, the steps to my demise, but I always hold back, determined not to give in, but wanting it at the same time. I know suicide is a sin warranting the deepest circles of Hell, but Hell can be nothing compared to a mortal life filled with days without you. I know that you'd call me selfish Watson, and beg me not to do it. It is selfish, to consider taking my own life simply because it is lived without you, but I am a selfish man. It would be so easy and I no longer fear death as I once did. If my life and existence without you continue like this, then death would be a blessed welcome.

Sherlock x


	6. Alternative EndingEpilogue

_**Author Note: I promised to write an alternate ending chapter- a sort of 'epilogue' that goes some way to making up for all the misery I've put you guys through over the previous chapters. Slightly AU in a way, but really more of a reincarnation/future fic.  
**__**Hope you like. **_

* * *

"_Love alters not with it's brief hours and weeks,  
__but bears it out even to the edge of doom"  
__**Sonnet 116, Shakespeare**_

"_I would to heaven that I were so much clay,  
__Am I am blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling-  
__Because at least the past were passed away.  
__And for the future, I say...-the future is a serious matter"  
__**Lord Byron**_

* * *

**Epilogue**

_The dream is unlike any other dream he has ever had, simply because it is so real. He is immediately aware of himself, and considers it strange that in a dream he is doing things so close to real life. He is blinking at intervals, he notices, and when he pinches the skin of his arm in a rudimentary test, it hurts. He doesn't wake up either, which is new. His rational mind tells him sternly to take no heed of this fake presumption, and usually that works. He is a logical man, and therefore logically, this can't be real. His heart has different plans however, and feeling the textures of the ghostly silent world he's living so close to reality- he can feel the rough skin beneath his fingers when he rubs them together, takes in the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes in and out- he believes truly in the information his senses are sending to his brain . And then he takes in the data, really considers it._

_The smell in his nostrils is chemical, hospital smell that reminds him of death. He can hear people speaking, but it's blurry for the moment, like the speakers are underwater. He has blanked out the sound in favour of looking at what he is seeing. _

_John is dying before him. Even in the back of his mind when he's wondering why in god's name he's conjuring up John in his mind with a moustache, the rest of his thoughts are taking it all in, painfully storing away the information he's experiencing. He notes the small room, the coppery smell of blood mixing with the insidious stench of illness. He himself is standing in a corner, watching the actors in his vision play out their roles. The cold ground is beneath his feet and he notices with some detachment that he doesn't seem to be wearing any shoes. He doesn't like this dream. It feels too real, too close to reality. The strange thing is that, unusually, he's not living this dream. It's not first person like most dreams, but it is as though he is a spectator in some eidolic show the universe is putting on simply for his benefit. And in this show he can see the small in-closed world of a hospital ward, inhabited by two men. The man in the hospital bed is John, looking different with a moustache and slightly shorter hair, but definitely him. The other man, he notes with a quirk of his lips, is himself. But this man, despite similarities, has been altered in the transition to this dream. His clothes are strange, old-fashioned, a worn black jacket and striped tie propped over the back of a chair next to the bedside, the other him wearing a printed waistcoat, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up haphazardly. The other him looks tired, as though he hasn't sleep well in a long time, his hair unkempt and stubble growing a shadow on his face .And in the dreamlike indefinite world his mind has conjured, he watches himself talk quietly to John, words he can't quite catch, yet he hear him call him Watson for a reason he cannot explain. He would try and pay more attention, but at the present he is focused on one fact in all this strangeness, one fact that hits him harder and draws more of a reaction even when he tells himself it isn't real. All his mind can take in it that John, whether it is his John or not, is _dying_,his breathing laboured and his heartbeats numbered and even if he couldn't see the terminal look upon his face, he would just know it by the feeling in his soul. He can barely look upon the doctor's pale face without wanting to run to him or run from him. The sight turns the very marrow of his bones cold with fear, and his heart panics wildly in the confines of his chest. John looks so ill, dark bruises around his eyes, face gaunt and pale. He too has neglected to shave, stubble growing the outlines of a full beard. He looks so tired, so very tired. _

"_Stay with me?" John says in a whisper of sound, every word seemingly a behemoth of effort for him. He wants to run to him as he watches this, to hold him and comfort him, but he cannot move from where he stands in the corner of the hospital room. The words are not directed at him however, but at the other him, who chokes out words in reply that he can barely hear. He is glad in a small way that the other him can respond and stay with John, while he- as an incorporeal spectre- watches over the two with sad eyes, filled with unshed tears. _

_The scene seems to change for a moment, and the other him has seemingly moved to lay by John in the hospital bed, holding him close with hands that bare tension-white knuckles. John breathes quietly and for a moment, both the men listening just hold onto the sound, because it means everything. It is strange, he considers, that one sound can hold their fragile hope together, or the lack of it dash them upon the ground like ornaments of glass. Then, naturally, like the world orbiting its axis or the falling of leaves in Autumn, John Watson takes his last breathe, and then gently falls silent. It hits him first, the ephemeral watcher, a jolt of panic in his gut and frustration that he can't move, can't help, and then like a reaction chain of only two domino's, the other him notices too. _

"_Watson?" The man whispers, and there is a tangent of fear in his voice as he shakes the man softly "Watson, wake up" He shakes him again, but harder this time, sitting up in the small cramped bed and moving John over from on his side to look at him. His fingers are frantic to take a pulse and he swears in a loud voice filled with terror as he struggles to find it. There is none to find. Still, the other man does not give up and he watches from the sidelines as the other him does what he would do, laying his head against the chest of a dead man, trying to find a heartbeat, trying to hold onto hope just a little bit longer , while in the corner he, the dreamer, cries silent tears of sorrow and fear, praying this is a dream because if he can't wake up from this he'd never be able to survive. And the other him is crying too, gasping in great sobs of air as he holds John close, his hands shaking as he strokes the pallid skin of the doctor's face, begs him in jilted words cut into stutters by his tears not to leave him, not to go. _

_And in the corner he wants to move closer, wants to hold his partner for one last time as the reality fools him for a moment. Because it feels so real; the tears on his face are real, the horror in his heart is real, even though he must be dreaming. He _has _to be dreaming. And as he watches himself- a man in old fashioned dress who does not seem to have had peace in so long,- he cries long hard tears of misery, the emotion welling up from seemingly nowhere. In his silent world he sobs along with his other, crying the name of a dead man even though no one can hear him..._

Sherlock awakes with a jolt and the first thing he notices are the warm tears on his face, and the darkness of night enveloping the room. The bedside clock displays the too early hour in red glowing letters, and he closes his eyes tight, squeezing out more tears, wanting back the total blackness to shroud him from the word, not wanting to see or remember the abstract vision of a time long past, a death long forgotten. A sob hitches in his throat, and he clutches the pillow under his head with tight fingers, wondering why it felt so real, why it hurt so much.

"Sherlock?" a gentle muttered voice sounds quietly behind him as an arm, heavy and warm with sleep, snakes around to hold him close as another arm moves up to clumsily flick on the bedside light. The black of the room is all of a sudden conquered in a glow of yellow light. "Sherlock, what's wrong?"

"I...I had a dream" he breathes out in reply, hating himself for the weakness now that the light has banished away the worst of the dark. It seems so childish now, to react so strongly at a mere dream, but his body remembers the strength of the emotion- how it felt, how it hurt- and he shudders at the memories it conjures up. The pallid face of a dying man rises in his vision and he squeezes his eye shut again for a moment to banish it. Turning his body round to face the other occupant of the bed, he releases a breath he did not know he was holding as his eyes in the brightened dim recognise an angular face with an expression of concern,sees blue eyes heavy with sleep but awakening slowly. And he tells his shaking body and trembling mind that it's ok, it's only a dream, that his John is not lying pale and dead upon a hospital bed, but is here, with him, safe. "About you"

"Tell me about it?" John asks in a gently phrased question. He never pushes for answers from his partner, Sherlock notes with a small smile, but he leaves the gap open for Sherlock to tell him what's troubling him. John props himself up as Sherlock sits up, pushing sleep away for the moment in favour of being there for him.

"It...it was horrible," he whispers, another tear rolling down his cheek and he's hating himself for acting so damn childishly over a dream. "You were dying- I mean, I think it was you, you looked different - and you just died, like it didn't matter, and I couldn't... I couldn't do anything..."

"Shh," is John's reply, calming his panic , and Sherlock leans into the touch John is providing, feeling strong arms holding him close, arms that are warm with blood that his heart is still pumping. _His heart is beating, he's not dead, he's _here _, safe and alive and with me. _Sherlock can feel himself relaxing in John's hold and it still amazes him how the touch of one individual can have such an affect on him. He does not mind it as such. It is a weakness he would rather possess than do without.

John cards his fingers once through Sherlock's bed hair, smirking in the strange light as his touch just serves to make his partner's hair look even more wild. Not that it ever looks well-kept normally. "I'm not going anywhere , I promise," he whispers to Sherlock, sincerity clear in his tone "It was just a dream"

Sherlock nods, but for some reason he knows that it wasn't just a dream. It is just a feeling on his part, no logic to back him up, but he _knows _it was something more than a night-time vision of his fears, an experience he can't quite describe. It's not a memory as such, but it felt like one, like he was glimpsing into a past life that he could no longer remember.

What Sherlock doesn't know is that John doesn't believe his own words either, because he's had some strange dreams of late too, ones that he hasn't seen fit to voice to his partner. Dreams where he's shouting Sherlock's surname at the edge of a waterfall in a foreign place that he knows he's never been, dreams where there's a bulldog called Gladstone that John knows he has never owned, dreams of camaraderie between him and Sherlock, even though it isn't them and it seems that they are a different Sherlock and John, in a world where they greet each other as Holmes and Watson. And the dreams feel so natural that he can't feel perturbed by them, even with their strangeness. Because some aspects of the dreams- the flashes of a life he hasn't lived- are the same as the reality he wakes up to. Sherlock- or Holmes, as he is in the dream- is still the insufferable man that he's been living with for nearly three years, who still dumps his stuff wherever he can find space, for John to come along later and fold whatever it is neatly and put it away in its proper place. This Holmes still seemingly knows everything from a simple expression or mark he finds, but John has long gotten used to it, seeing it as a uniqueness in his partner he wouldn't do without. And this Holmes, as with his Sherlock, is still the most important thing in the world to him, is still a man who can make his heartbeat race or raise a smile when he's had a bad day at the surgery. He supposes that is something that will never change.

"You ok now?" John asks Sherlock, kissing him chastely on the lips. Sherlock nods, looking embarrassed to have reacted in such a way. Emotional outbursts are never something he is comfortable with. "Come on, you've got to be up for work early"

Sherlock nods an agreement, groaning in a way that makes John laugh quietly. Sherlock likes it when John laughs. It makes him happy too, and this feeling of contentment slowly waylays any leftover negative fears from his dream. The two settle down again with the intent of sleeping- both having to be up for work in the morning-, Sherlock turning back round on his side again and feeling John's arm wrapped around him in an expression that makes him feel safe, memories of the dream fading. What's here, now, is what counts to Sherlock , and he's sure by morning he will barely be able to recall the aspects of the dream.

The light goes off again with a click, black extinguishing yellow, and he feels John move in closer up against him, Sherlock moving his arms to enable him to entwine his fingers into the spaces between John's where his partners arm has wrapped around his waist.

He's calm again now, again grateful for the fact that a man like John Watson stays with him despite his faults, grateful that he has someone there who will never complain when propping Sherlock up, no matter how heavy the burden. He's glad that he met John, of all places, at a crime scene in the pouring rain, the detective whose eyes- searching for clues as to the murderer's identity- were momentarily distracted by the sight of one of the young pathologists- who, he found out later from station gossip, had just come back from serving as a doctor in Iraq. They'd become close companions almost immediately, later in terms of a more romantic fashion, and although work relationships were usually frowned upon, they'd kept it low key enough at work for the superiors to look the other way. It just became part of the general way of things, and everyone knew that DI Holmes and Dr Watson were more than friends. It just wasn't something that anyone was really concerned about. Society had moved on enough to accept their relationship, and Sherlock knew that if he and John had fallen for each other in any time past, it would have meant a prison sentence or death. If he had lived in a time past and had known John, he would not have known how he would have been able _not _to love him, no matter the consequences. He can't imagine a life not being with the man he loved.

His mind moves away from such morbid thoughts as tiredness begins to steal over him, dimming his mind with thoughts of sleep and rest, comfortable with the touch of John beside him, who is already breathing heavily , on his way to the waiting arms of Morpheus. All that matters now, Sherlock thinks as he closes his eyes, is that he has John now, here in this time, and nothing can get in the way of that.

But just for a moment, he thinks of the man in the hospital ward with a dying companion, and he holds onto John's hand tighter, as though afraid to let him go.

Just for a moment.


End file.
